


Take this step and just let go

by blackmustache



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmustache/pseuds/blackmustache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Blaine are still "just friends", but they're the only ones who see it that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take this step and just let go

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 4.14. Kurt/Blaine is the main theme, and even though there is Kurt/Adam and they are not together by the end, nobody is a dick and nobody cheats on anybody. Just in case that kind of thing turns anybody off :)

By the time Kurt was finished getting ready for their double feature, Blaine had already arrived and was sitting on the couch chatting with Sam. His eyes lit up when he saw Kurt, and Kurt couldn't help but stand a little straighter as he watched Blaine look him over with delight. He stepped out to retrieve his coat from the closet with a grin, trying not to laugh as he heard Blaine stammer his way through a few more sentences before apologising to Sam for being distracted and excusing himself entirely.

When Kurt turned back around, his coat slung over one arm, Blaine was standing in the doorway behind him. "Ready to go?"

Kurt nodded and hummed happily as he stepped closer to Blaine, reaching out to touch the collar button of the polo Blaine was wearing under his sweater. "No bow-tie tonight?"

Blaine dipped his chin against his chest as he looked down at Kurt's fingers and then back up to meet Kurt's eyes with a small smile of his own. "Not tonight. I'm trying to expand my style."

Kurt laughed and let his arm drop, squeezing Blaine's elbow on the way down. He stepped out of Blaine's space, poking his head back into the lounge where Burt was just about to sit down in the spot Blaine had vacated. "We're going out. I'll try not to make too much noise when I get in."

Burt turned and looked between Kurt and Blaine, a smirk playing on his lips, before changing his mind about taking a seat and setting down his glass of water on the table instead. "Can I just borrow you for a real quick second before you go?"

"Sure." Kurt tossed Blaine the keys to his rental before following his dad into the kitchen. "I'll see you out there."

"It's good to see you and Blaine talking again."

Kurt narrowed his eyes. He knew exactly where this was going. "Yeah, it's nice. I missed him."

"And is that all it is? Talking?"

"Yes, dad." Kurt sighed, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor. "We're just friends. It's good to be able to hang out with him again."

"Mmm," Burt nodded, looking like he absolutely didn't believe what Kurt was telling him. Kurt knew that look. He'd seen it many times. He'd even _used_ it a few times – it was a trademark Hummel expression, and it meant that meddling was about to occur. "It's just you don't usually stand so close to your other friends when you're talking to them. Like Sam."

"Dad-"

"I'm just saying," Burt held up his hands in defence and raised his eyebrows. "That if you and Blaine really are _just friends_ , then that's very mature of you both and I'm proud."

"But?"

Burt crossed his arms and leant back against the kitchen counter, looking directly at Kurt, considering his words. Kurt shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. "Remember that talk we had a couple years back, about certain situations and certain things being.... _special_?"

"Oh god, Dad, I don't have time for this. We've got somewhere to be."

"I know, I know. I'm not going to keep you. I seem to recall you tried to run away the last time too, though."

"I'm not running away, we really do have to get going-"

"Just remember that it works both ways, okay? It needs to be special for both parties."

Kurt stopped in his tracks and turned back to look at his dad. "What are you saying?"

Burt raised an eyebrow and hit Kurt squarely with his best Dad-Look. "You know exactly what I'm saying. If you're _just friends_ then that's great," he smiled, this time emphasising the words _just friends_ with air quotes in a way that made Kurt absolutely certain his dad didn't believe him. "But you should bear in mind that the walls are just as thin here as they always were and perhaps if you wanted people to believe that then you and Blaine should have considered staying over in that fancy hotel after Mr Schuester's wedding inside of coming back here."

And while Kurt might have just rolled his eyes in response and then strode out to the car trying very hard not to look as if he wanted the ground to swallow him up, he knew his dad had a point and he wasn't being fair to Blaine. He wouldn't admit it but the idea of hooking up with Blaine again at some point that night had already crossed his mind and all of a sudden he was delighted that Tina had agreed to come with them.

When Blaine came with Burt to say goodbye at the airport the next day, Kurt could feel his dad's eyes on his every move. He tried his best to stick to the friendship line, after all he'd be back in New York in a couple of hours and he was meeting Adam for dinner later.

But despite his best intentions, he couldn't help hugging Blaine extra tight at the last second and whispering "I'll call you when I land," into his ear.

–

A couple of weeks later, Kurt was in the kitchen trying out a new recipe he'd found online for lemon cake when there was a knock at the door.

"Rachel!" He called out. "If Brody forgot his key again, you can either let him in or leave him standing out there because I have a limited window of time to get this into the oven before the whole thing collapses and I'm not wasting ingredients on a flat cake just to let your boyfriend back inside. I don't even want him here."

Adam, who was sitting at the table flicking through some choice selections from Kurt's collection of sheet music, chuckled quietly and Kurt smiled to himself before turning back to the mixer. Things with Adam were going well – they weren't dating exclusively but they were seeing a lot of each other, and Kurt was having fun with the lack of expectations.

Rachel flounced out of the bathroom, hairbrush in hand. "It's not Brody, thank you, he just called and he's still at school. He'll be at least an hour." She headed for the door anyway, waving her hairbrush wildly at Kurt as she spoke. "It's probably Santana, or- Blaine!"

"Why would it be Blai-" Kurt started, accidentally flicking cake mix up the wall as he spun around holding the paddle attachment he'd just removed from the mixer.

"Hey," said a voice that was unmistakably Blaine's, quickly followed by Blaine stepping around the corner and into view. "Hi."

"And also Tina," said Tina as she popped into sight with a grin. "Tina's here too."

As soon as he laid eyes them Kurt found himself beaming, abandoning all thoughts of producing a light and airy lemon sponge and rushing over to envelop the both of them in a huge hug. "What are you guys doing here?!"

Blaine grinned, bouncing on his toes as Tina turned to Rachel to hug her too. "Tina wanted to look at schools. She's kind of undecided but FIT is on her list of maybes."

"Tina can talk for herself," Tina piped up. "Tina is also apparently only able to refer to herself in the third person right now."

Blaine ignored her and carried on talking. "I'm obviously applying to NYADA like we discussed at Christmas but I wanted to have a backup plan, so we thought we'd come out and have our own little mini adventure and check a couple out. We're just on our way to our hotel but we wanted to stop in and say hi."

"Yeah," Tina mumbled, leaning closer to Rachel with a knowing look. " _We_ wanted to do that."

Kurt was suddenly keenly aware of Adam sitting quietly at the table, watching the two new arrivals with interest. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. Adam, this is Blaine, and Tina. We all went to school together."

Adam stood up, a genuine smile on his face as he reached out to shake Blaine's hand. "So you're Blaine. I've heard a lot about you."

"Oh," Blaine blushed a little. "You have?"

"All good, of course," Adam smiled. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Mostly good," Kurt mumbled to himself, and looked up to see Blaine looking over at him apologetically as Adam reached out to take Tina's hand, placing a kiss on the back of it. Tina practically melted right there in front of them, and as Adam returned to the table to tidy up the music he'd been looking through, he heard Tina lean to Blaine and comment on Kurt attracting _all the hot guys_.

"You should stay here," Kurt suddenly heard himself saying, partly to shut Tina up before she went any further down that road, but mostly because it seemed like an obvious suggestion. "Don't waste your money on a hotel."

Blaine looked surprised, glancing at Adam and then back at Kurt. "Are you sure? I know it's getting a little crowded in here."

Kurt had followed Blaine's gaze when he'd looked over at Adam, and he was pleased (and unsurprised, really) to see that Adam didn't react as if it was a bad idea. Kurt nodded. "Tina can take my bed, you can have the couch. And we've got a rollaway that we were using when Santana first moved in before she got a bed for herself. I'll take that."

Tina grinned. "That sounds perfect, thank you. Our budget was a little stretched after Blaine vetoed the cheapest hotels, so now we'll be able to afford to eat."

"Those hotels all had bedbug reports, Tina. I was just looking out for us."

Kurt laughed and headed back towards the kitchen to get some drinks and put together some snacks, dumping the cake mixture into a pan and shoving it into the oven. All thoughts of making the perfect cake may have gone out of the window, but he still wasn't going to waste the ingredients by throwing out the mix. While he was setting the timer he heard Rachel and Tina start gossiping, which left Blaine and Adam to chat.

"So, another potential NYADA student?" Adam started, helpfully bringing Tina and Blaine's luggage inside and stacking it out of the way. "Kurt tells me you're very talented."

"Oh," Blaine squeaked, blushing slightly and glancing in Kurt's direction. "I don't know about that."

Kurt rolled his eyes as he picked up the tray of drinks he'd put together. He hadn't bothered asking what everybody wanted – he knew them all well enough that he could do this in his sleep. "I do. Everything you do is incredible. You'll have Madam Tibideaux eating out of the palm of your hand when you audition."

\--

A few hours later, with both Santana and Brody home and everybody squashed into the seats in the lounge, Kurt found himself wedged between Blaine and Tina.

"Have you decided what to sing for your audition?" Adam asked Blaine. If Kurt was honest, he was finding it deeply unsettling how well they were getting on. Somewhere in the back of his head, he'd always assumed that if they met it would be an awkward encounter for all three of them, but this was... strangely normal. Perhaps the element of surprise had something to do with it, he hadn't had time to get nervous about it.

"Not yet," Blaine shrugged, reaching forward for a chocolate from the box on the table. "I want to concentrate on getting my finalist letter first. I don't want to jinx anything by choosing a song before that."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," Santana smirked. She was curled up on a beanbag in the corner. "There's plenty of work to do in New York even if you don't get in." She looked up at Brody. "Right, Deuce Bigalow?"

"Santana!" Rachel exclaimed. She was settled in Brody's lap, her legs hanging over the side of the recliner. "I am sick and tired of the way you've been treating Brody the last few weeks. He was here first, remember? And he was actually _invited_ to move in, unlike some people."

"Oh, settle down Berry." Santana still had a smug look on her face, and as much as Kurt didn't really like Brody, most of that was borne from a place of feeling sympathy for Finn. But Santana had been acting weird about Brody for at least a week, and to Kurt it seemed like there was something more to it than just wanting to irritate Rachel. He made a mental note to try and get her to spill later, even if he had to get her drunk first.

"No," Rachel was yelling now. "It's not fair-"

"Hey," Brody whispered to Rachel, gently squeezing her thigh. "It's fine."

"It's not fine," she whispered forcefully back. "She can't just say things like that, just because she's jealous-"

"Jealous?" Santana snorted. "Please. Have you _seen_ how hot I am?"

Blaine leaned in towards Kurt's ear. "Is it always this crazy in here?" he muttered.

"Imagine the choir room, and then imagine what last year would have been like if we all didn't have homes to go to so that we could get away from each other for a few hours. I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been actual bloodshed yet."

Blaine laughed, and was about to reply when Adam got to his feet. "Kurt?" He cleared his throat a little and held his hand out to pull Kurt to his feet from his place on the sofa. "I've got to get going."

"Oh. Are you sure?" They'd planned to spend the night together before Tina and Blaine arrived. He hoped Adam wasn't feeling uncomfortable about all of the yelling.

Adam just nodded, smiling. "I'm going to leave you all to reminisce. Blaine, Tina, it's been lovely to finally meet you." He looked back towards Kurt. "Walk me out?"

Kurt obliged, stepping over shoes and people to follow Adam out, pulling the door closed behind him. "You really have to go? Or is the power of the New Directions just too much to handle?" Kurt teased, smiling.

Adam laughed. "Listen, Kurt."

That didn't sound good. Suddenly Kurt found himself frowning and folding his arms across his chest. "Are you-" He held back from saying _breaking up with me_ because he still wasn't sure there was anything to _break_. They weren't officially dating, after all. "Are you going to say you don't want to see me any more? Is it my friends? They're not dealbreakers, I can ditch them!" He forced a laugh.

"No, not at all. Well, I suppose in a way..."

"You're being incredibly confusing."

Adam smiled, reaching out to tug Kurt's arms apart, looser. More relaxed. "You are a wonderful person, Kurt. You're hot, and smart, and you don't need me to patronise you by telling you good things about yourself - you already know them. Somebody like you knows what you want, and deserves to get what you want – and what you want is Blaine. It's plain as day."

Kurt stared at Adam, his mouth hanging open. "It is?" He cleared his throat. "I mean, no. We're just friends."

"It's completely obvious. So you should probably get back in there, tell him, and have some incredible sex tonight. And then you can tell me everything over coffee next week." He scrunched up his nose a little with a cheeky grin. "Well, maybe not _everything_."

If what Kurt wanted post-Blaine had been something new, something grown up, he'd definitely had that with Adam. And now even their break-up was incredibly mature, and if nothing else he knew that the fact that he hadn't blushed even a little at any of Adam's compliments showed that he'd come a long way from that baby penguin conversation.

Adam smiled again and stepped forward, pressing a kiss to Kurt's cheek. "I'll see you at rehearsal on Monday?"

"I... Yeah, I guess so."

"You should bring Blaine. I'd really appreciate an outside perspective on whether our Timberlake/Bublé Cry Me A River medley is working. I feel like there's something missing and I just can't put my finger on what it is."

Kurt snorted a laugh. "Yeah, okay. I think he'd like that. I'll see you there."

He watched as Adam disappeared down the stairs, and carried on staring down into the darkness for a good few minutes after Adam was out of sight. When he finally let himself back inside he squeezed himself back into his spot between Blaine and Tina, noticing that Santana had already claimed the seat Adam had vacated and was deep in conversation with Tina.

"I see the feud blew over while I was gone?" Kurt mumbled to Blaine, letting his hand rest high on Blaine's thigh. He hadn't realised how much energy he'd been expending trying not to touch Blaine while Adam was around until now.

Blaine's eyes widened at the touch and he looked down at Kurt's hand, then twisted around slightly so that he could get a good look at Kurt's face. "Yeah. I, uh. I don't remember how, but yeah." He looked back at Kurt's hand, staring at it for a few seconds before taking the risk and settling his own fingers on top. He dropped his voice even lower and whispered straight into Kurt's ear. "Kurt, did something just happen?"

Kurt nodded a little, pressing closer into Blaine's side. "Adam and I ended things." At this point there was little point even debating what level of 'things' there were to end; all that mattered was that there was nothing between them any more. The path of reunion was clear for him and Blaine, no more excuses or obstacles.

"You- what? Why? He seemed really nice."

Kurt took a deep breath. He knew everything Adam had said was true, but this was a big step. He was silent for a long minute before he finally spoke. "Because I'm hopelessly in love with you, dummy," he admitted.

Blaine blinked in surprise and blushed a deep red, squeezing Kurt's fingers instead of trying to formulate a sentence. " _Oh._ "

"Hey!" Santana exclaimed. "James Bland is gone for five whole minutes and you're already groping Anderson?" She grinned. "Way to go, Hummel!"

"Don't call him that, I've told you before."

"But while you're defending Harry Potter, you're neither denying the groping or stopping doing it," she pointed out, and Kurt sighed.

"They're getting back together," Tina announced, and Kurt glared at her. "We're squashed very tightly onto a very small couch, Kurt. I don't know why you thought I wouldn't hear you declaring your love for Blaine."

"Speaking of the couch," Santana interrupted. "If you two are going to be having sex all night, you are not doing it someplace I have to sit. Tina can sleep in my bed tonight so that you two love muffins can have Kurt's love den all to yourself." She paused. "And try to remember we don't have walls. Berry and Action Man are already loud enough without adding two more voices to the dawn chorus."

Kurt pressed his lips together to stop himself from snapping back at her. He wasn't going to let Santana ruin this with her comments and his brain wasn't in the right place to come up with something zippy to snap back. He would rather say nothing at all than come up with an inadequate retort.

Instead he turned back to Blaine and rested his head on his shoulder so that he was able to whisper straight into his ear. If he could stop Tina from hearing absolutely everything, it would be a bonus. "So when you cancelled your hotel, they told you they were charging you for the first night anyway, right?"

Blaine nodded, a smile slowly spreading across his face as he realised what Kurt was thinking. "They said we needed to cancel yesterday so the room is officially ours – mine and Tina's – until tomorrow lunchtime."

"Do you think Tina would mind if I took her place?"

"If it means she doesn't have to sleep with Santana, I'm sure she'd be all for it."

"Mmm," Kurt breathed. "Santana's a kicker."

"Tina can hear you," Tina reminded them patiently. "And she thinks you should go now before you end up having sex in front of us all right here on the couch."


End file.
